“While Apple is using an A6 processor for this new iPad mini, developer Nick Frey has shared with us that Apple is also developing a new A7 processor,” Mark Gurman reports for 9to5Mac.

“A reference to an s5l8960x (likely A7) processor, which is a leap over the s5l8950x (A6) and s5l8955x (A6X), was located inside of the iOS 7 filesystem,” Gurman reports. “Based on recent chatter, it seems plausible that this will be the chip powering the new iPhone 5S.”

Gurman reports, “Interestingly, it appears that Apple will again work with Samsung for this new chip”

Anyone expecting Apple to suddenly drop Samsung as a supplier is not thinking clearly. “I can’t believe Samsung did not see it coming” and so forth…

Samsung is one of the largest suppliers of tech components in the world, if not the largest. If Apple intentionally dropped Samsung as a supplier, Apple gives up one of its key advantages over the completion, which is lower production cost. And we are not just talking about A7 chips.

Without Samsung in the mix, Apple’s production cost would rise because those components would be artificially scarcer for Apple. At the same time, Samsung would have monumental excess production capacity without Apple as a customer, and the cost for those components for Apple’s competition would drop. Apple’s high volume purchasing advantage would be gone, and then some…

Apple is not stupid. Apple may rely a bit less on Samsung over time, but Samsung as a supplier for Apple continues indefinitely.

I’m not just referring to the A-chips. Samsung supplies MANY other components from Apple products (and competitor products), including flash memory, DRAM memory, touchscreen displays, etc. And those ARE “Samsung components.”

Apple has the high volume (to reduce production cost) advantage, as long as Apple does not intentionally exclude Samsung as a supplier. Samsung has the “supply yourself with parts at cost” advantage. No wonder Apple and Samsung are destroying the rest of the competition in mobile.

Agree; one correction: Samsung never supplied touch panels (it does not produce this component at all), it only made displays (matrices), and they are not “Samsung components” anyway since Apple designs them (and unrolls production in few manufacturers-subcontractors simultaneously — this is how Retina display was made by three suppliers from very beginning).

Apple and Samsung joined at the hip like a Siamese twin. To Samsung’s Cheech is Apple’s Chong. Brothers in arms like the Al Qaeda twins, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, except one of them is dead.

when I said that Apple can’t get independence from Samsung in terms of supply, people didn’t believe me. here is what apple does. eventually apple doesn’t have any technology to build chip, and other parts because patent is not reality they make. I bet that apple won’t get away from Samsung forever. if they want, they should build its own factories, and accumulate their own technology to build entire product line. but I don’t think that apple can. most technological patent or present tech on smart phone is own by Samsung. if you compare it with apple, apple can’t even count a half. I guess that apple will negotiate with Samsung to talk about lawsuit as nothing happen in the end because apple can’t survive without Samsung.

Samsung is South Korea, not North. But if you want some high tech North Korea goodness, then get Pyongyang Racer, the countries hottest video game. Or try out Red Star OS, the first Linux operating system to come out of the Motherland. It’s also the only one, since Windows, Mac, and anything from North Korea’s enemy’s are banned from within the country’s borders.

I think Apple should go with a different company. Not only is Samsung dirty, cheap, liars, but their chips can’t compare to Nvidia’s Tegra chips. In fact, I think Apple should dump them and go Nvidia. Nvidia’s chips are pretty bad-ass anyway, and I have a game computer that has it, so Apple should use them instead.

Apple doesn’t “have to” do anything. It has enough money in the bank to build anything — or at least it did before AAPL management became Wall St. lackeys and architectural donut builders.

Unfortunately the Apple management team is too short-sighted to see that their picking the cheapest/most capable/available component supplier is also teaching Samsung how to build Apple products. Just like every other western industry has done, thanks to Wall Street prodding: taking short term profits at the expense of long-term IP (both design and manufacturing) advantage. Apple’s notorious “operations expert”, practically revered as a god on these forums, continues to screw the pooch on strategic outsourcing versus vertical integration.

When are manufacturers going to wake up and realize that outsourcing to countries that don’t respect IP ownership is only creating the next generation of competitors, which of course have inherently lower internal costs due to newer infrastructure and younger employees?

BEST POST ON THIS SUBJECT, MIKE!
Ultimately failure to OWN and control all aspects of mfg is a fatal flaw for US industry. Now if only we could reverse anti-business and anti-mfg US policy (i.e., fire most of Congress and the Executive Branch), inviting innovative companies like Apple to mfg in USA, we’d have win/win all around.

Sometimes I hate Apple…
Instead I’d spending 60 Fing billion on a useless sharebuyback they should spend 60 billion on getting rid of Samsung… Why are they doing this? You are killing us. So the iPhone 5S will also be tainted.